From the Ashes
by King Pepperony
Summary: What happens after... Note: INFINITY WAR SPOILERS HEREIN! THIS STORY CONTAINS SPOILERS! DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN INFINITY WAR! I warned you. Don't say I didn't warn you because I warned you.


**INFINITY WAR SPOILERS - DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU HAVE SEEN THE MOVIE**

 **YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!**

 **I do not own any of the characters. If I did...ooooh, the things I would do with these guys.**

 **I am in the process of writing two other stories but after seeing Infinity War...I had to write something.**

He honestly didn't even recall how he got back to Earth, only that he was now standing in the middle of absolute chaos. Abandoned and crashed vehicles littered the once familiar streets. Buildings were on fire. There was even the remains of a crashed helicopter in the middle of a corner store. The wind was blowing hard, ruffling his hair. It was the only sound he could hear besides the thumping of his own heart. There were partials of debris drifting lazily through the air. He squinted up. Was it snowing? How the hell was it snowing?

The realization of what he was experiencing made him stagger and almost go down. He had to fight hard against his rebelling muscles, muscles that just wanted to give up rather than deal with the gravity of the situation. No. That was not snow. That was ash he was tasting on his tongue. People. He was breathing in people. He tried not to vomit and only barely succeeded. He may not have died but this was hell. He had entered hell.

He ordered Friday to start dialing Pepper. He told the AI to keep calling until she picked up the phone. Tony leaned his weight onto a mailbox in front of an antique store. The sign declared it was "open" but there was no one inside. He wondered if they had left or had simply turned to ash and disappeared. His head began to pound. The wound in his side throbbed in time with his pulse. _Come on. Come on. Pepper. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up._ But no matter how many times he repeated the words in his head, her voice never reached his ears. One call became two and three and four until he lost track of the number of times he tried to reach her.

"Boss, why don't you just leave her a message?"

"No. Keep calling her, Friday," Tony snarled as he pushed himself off of his resting place and started to stagger down the sidewalk. He wouldn't be okay until he heard her voice. She couldn't be gone. She just couldn't be. No. That was not an option. Pepper Potts could not be wiped from existence. She was too strong willed. Too stubborn. No. She was simply not answering the phone. That was all. It was nothing more than that. Just like when he called her back when he took the nuke through the wormhole, she just hadn't noticed her phone was ringing. Pepper still existed. She did. She did! God he really wished his suit was more than just fragments of its former glory. If it hadn't been so severely damaged, he would fly to her. He would fly to her, gather her up in his arms and never let her go. Once he found her, he was never letting her go ever again.

He honestly doesn't know how Happy Hogan found him. Maybe Friday told him where he was. Maybe it was just intuition but there he was, pulling the car over and stopping on the street next to him. Not that he really cared how he found him. Just that he was here. He was here. He was alive, getting out of the car and coming around to him but Pepper...where was Pepper?

"Where is she?" When Happy didn't answer right away, Tony surged forward, grabbing him by his jacket and hauling him forward, not caring in the slightest that his wound was screaming at him. "Where is she?!" He was shouting in the man's face now but he didn't care. If he lost Pepper...if he lost Pepper, there would be no point. None of this would matter. If his Pepper was ash, he wouldn't be able to bare it. He would die from the weight of everything pressing down on him. No. Not Pepper. Not his Pepper. She was the one thing he couldn't live without.

"Calm down, Boss."

"Where is Pepper?" Pure desperation made Tony push him almost violently into the side of the idling car. Happy's hands went up in surrender obviously shocked by Tony's out of character behavior. Tony was positive he looked like a complete madman but currently, he didn't give a damn. "Where the hell is she, Hogan?"

"Tony?! Oh my God. Tony!"

At the sound of that oh-so familiar voice, Tony released his hold on Happy but refused to let himself get too excited just yet. His eyes needed to confirm that it wasn't just his overactive imagination playing tricks on him. That she was really here with him. He swore his heart stuttered and then stopped at the sight of her coming around from the other side of the car.

It was her. She looked a little worse for wear but it was definitely her. Her blue eyes were as red as they had been when he had stepped out of the plane when he came back from Afghanistan, but Pepper was okay. She was okay. And at that realization, his heart restarted. "Tony, what happened up there?"

And suddenly he was back on Titan unable to do anything to stop the horrible events that were about to come to pass. He couldn't move. He couldn't speak. He could only watch as the people around him began to turn to dust.

"Tony?" Pepper stopped directly in front of him, tentatively reaching out out to brush her knuckles across his cheek but he couldn't feel it. He couldn't feel anything. Didn't want to feel because it was too much. It was all too much. Pepper, his Pepper was okay but so many were not. Peter Parker was not. _Peter._

"I _don't want to go. I don't wanna go. Mr. Stark, please."_

He was a kid. He was just a freakin' kid. The others had disintegrated without seeming to know it was coming but Peter knew. He knew. He knew he was about to be wiped from existence and he had been so afraid, clinging onto his mentor like Tony could some how save him from being swept away. He had begged and pleaded trying to avoid the inevitable but it came. Oh, it still came and the boy, that teenage boy who he was suppose to protect had turned to ash in his hands.

"Tony, baby. Please say something."

No. He couldn't. He couldn't open his mouth because if he did...if he did...he wouldn't be able to stop himself from screaming or sobbing or both. Most likely both and Tony Stark didn't cry. He didn't. He couldn't.

Pepper was begging him now, grasping his face in her hands, pleading with him to respond to her. "Tony. Please. Please. What's wrong? What happened?" Her petite hands were shaking as she pulled him down to press her lips against his in a gentle kiss.

It was that kiss that made his defenses crumble. Tony couldn't hold it in any longer. His entire body began to quake so hard he thought he would shake apart in her arms but she held on, tried to hold him together as he shattered. Maybe he would turn to dust and blow away in the wind too. His knees buckled underneath him and Pepper slid down to the ground with him, refusing to let him go. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It's my fault. I'm sorry." He buried his head into her shoulder, trying to hide his sobs in the curve of her neck. "Why did he apologize to me? I was suppose to protect him. It wasn't his fault. It was mine."

"Who..."

"The kid. Parker. I treated him terribly, Pepper." Tony felt Pepper's fingers thread into his hair and shuddered under her touch. "I didn't..I didn't deserve his respect. I definitely didn't deserve his adoration. He looked up to me. He looked up to me, goddammit and I couldn't protect him. He was just a kid, Pep. He was just a kid and now he's gone. He's dead and it's on me. It's all on me."

Pepper must have had enough of his self-deprecation because she finally pushed him away from her, grasping his chin firmly between her thumb and index finger, forcing him to meet her gaze. Her blue eyes were full of tears but the expression on her face was fierce. "Tony Stark, this is not your fault. None of this is your fault. Do you hear me? I won't sit here and let you do this to yourself. You are not to blame. You carry the whole weight of the world on your shoulders and you don't have to because you are not at fault here."

"I could have done more. I should have done more."

The expression on Pepper's face shifted to concern when she looked down and noticed the front of her shirt was now soaked in blood. His blood. Her eyes grew wide. "Tony, you've lost a lot of blood. We need to get you to a hospital."

"What's the point?" Tony's shout startled Pepper, the words out of his mouth before he had even realized he had spoken. "Half of life as we know it has been wiped out. Thanos won. We lost. It's over. Strange just handed over his infinity stone in exchange for my life like he promised he wouldn't do, dammit! He told me he would protect the stone at all costs and then and then he just hands it over."

"He must have had a good reason," Pepper interjected. "Tony, please, please, please let us take you to the hospital. I can't lose you. I can't." She leaned forward to rub her nose against his, and Tony sighed at the familiar contact, almost whimpering when she pulled away. Her eyes held his. "Please."

There was no way he was saying no to those eyes. There wouldn't be a point. She wouldn't have it anyway. He nodded once. Happy helped him get to his feet. He swayed a bit until Pepper wrapped an arm around his middle and helped Happy get him into the car. He scooted into the backseat, hissing in pain, his hands flying to cover his injury.

Pepper slid into the backseat next to him. "Tony, let me see."

Tony's brain didn't seem to process her words. It was still busy trying to reboot and get back online. He couldn't just fall apart. Not now. Not when there were a million things he needed to do. He needed to figure out why in the hell Strange had given up the stone for him. Pepper was right. There had to be a reason. Strange had said he had seen fourteen million outcomes and they only won in one of those. One out of fourteen million. With those odds, may as well play the freakin' lottery.

"Show me, Tony."

It was then he noticed Pepper was eyeing the area where his battle wound was. He kept his hands firmly over it and raised his head to meet her eyes. He didn't want her to see it. Hell, he didn't even really want to see it. He had no idea how badly he was actually injured. He would stay in what was left of his suit until he got to the hospital and away from her prying eyes. He couldn't handle it if it was bad and Pepper fell to pieces in front of him. "I agreed to go to the hospital, Pepper. I don't want you to see it. Please, don't make me show you. Please..." He turned his eyes up to hers and he knew immediately he had won. His infamous puppy dog eyes saved his ass again.

For once, Pepper didn't protest. She simply sighed, putting one of her hands on top of both of his and rested her head on his shoulder.

Nobody spoke on the ride to the hospital. Tony was glad for Pepper's grounding presence in the car next to him because looking out the windows, taking in what had happened to his planet while he was worlds away was almost too much for his brain to handle.

When they finally made it to the hospital, Happy made him stay in the backseat as he ran inside to get help. It wasn't long before a gurney was rolled out by a medical team and they were loading him onto it. Pepper didn't want to leave his side. She was gripping onto his arm, her nails digging into his skin almost painfully as they tried to roll him away.

"We've got him, Miss Potts. We've got him," one of the women told her, touching her shoulder. "We will take good care of him. I promise."

Pepper nodded, finally releasing her hold on Tony. He could tell letting him go took all of the strength she had. From his place on the gurney, he watched her bottom lip begin to wobble. A hand flew up to cover her mouth as the tears streaked down her cheeks.

"I love you, Pep," Tony said as he was rolled inside. The only reply he received was that of her sobs.

When he finally woke hours later in a hospital bed, Pepper was there at his side. She was on her PDA scrolling through emails. A smile tugged at his lips. The apocalypse had happened and here was Pepper Potts being the best CEO she could be. Of course Pepper would still be working hard when the entire world was falling apart around them. If the situation wouldn't have been so dire, he would have laughed. Honestly. But laughing likely would have made his stab wound feel much worse.

"You working hard there, Potts?"

She gasped, the PDA falling to her lap, her eyes darting up to finally notice he was awake. "How are you?"

"Been better," he answered truthfully. "But you are here so it could be worse. Also the pain meds aren't too bad."

Pepper's lips twitched in amusement. "You are so lucky I love you so much because I honestly wanted to strangle you for not listening to me when I called."

Tony knew exactly what phone call she was talking about and for awhile he had believed it would be the last time he got to talk to the love of his life. "I had to go, Pep. I had to."

Pepper sighed. "I know. When I called you and found out you were on that spaceship..."

Tony tried to sit up but moving too much sent a sharp pain through his side. "Shit, Pep."

Pepper pressed a finger to his lips to silence him. "Let me talk, Tony. I have to say this. I-I thought I would never see you again." When her voice broke, Tony reached out and took her hand. She swallowed, blinking back tears before they could start to fall. "The dinner we had planned. I had something important I needed to tell you." Tony gave her hand a reassuring squeeze wanting her to continue. She took a deep breath before the words "You were right," shuddered out of her.

Tony raised his brows at her admission. "Wait, you are actually admitting I'm right for once? Hell must have frozen over because the day that Pepper Potts admits that Tony Stark was actually right has finally come."

"Tony!" Pepper's voice was scolding.

He gave her a lopsided grin that made her roll her eyes. "Okay, I was right. What was I right about?"

"Your dream."

"My dream? You mean the dream I was telling you about before the wizard so rudely interrupted us?"

Pepper bit on her bottom lip and nodded.

"So, you do want to start a family then? I mean, Pepper, I do want to marry you and eventually have a family, the whole sh-bang but the timing right now isn't the greatest. You know...with half of existence being wiped from the planet..."

"I'm pregnant."

Usually the only way Pepper could get him to shut up was by kissing him senseless but this time her words were enough to stun him to silence for several moments. He just laid there, blinking up at her stupidly. Maybe the pain medication had made him a little loopy and he misheard her but she was deliberately avoiding eye contact. "Come again now?"

"After you left, I went home and took a test just to be sure. I thought there was no way you could be right but you were. You were right. I'm pregnant, Tony. We are going to have a baby."


End file.
